To some it might just mean nightclubs and four-on-the-floor beats, but EDM is about far more than just pounding rhythms. There’s a lot of “real” songwriting that often rivals any other genre you care to name, and at the extreme end of the scale are people like Andrew Bayer. It would be unfair to simply call him a “producer”–though his skill in this role is astounding–because he’s also a songwriter, a performer, a musician, and his talent is clear to see in his latest album, If It Were You We’d Never Leave.

His sophomore LP isn’t just your traditional follow-up album. We caught up with Andrew at the Anjunabeats Volume 10 party in Miami a few weeks ago, and he explained the groundwork was already in place when his debut album It’s Artificial was released.

“I started the whole album about four years ago, so everything is four years old or under. I wrote everything in about nine months, then there were some finishing touches to the production that I did over the past year, but other than that the whole thing was pretty much there two years ago.”

So what of the music itself? Bayer himself sums it pretty well, in describing how the tracks were written, the style he was going for, and how this is something slightly unusual.

“(This album) takes the glitch hop side of my first and combines it with a pop music structure. So you have tunes with A/B sections and choruses, but it’s all still very experimental, ambient hip hop. It sounds bizarre on paper, but I think it makes sense when you listen to it.”

The glitchy hip hop beats are still heavily present in tracks such as Doomsday and Farnsworth Court, but there’s a stunning sense of ambient tranquility throughout the entire album as well. There are tracks which are in league with major Hollywood film scores, Opening Act 2 and Closing Act being the prime examples, nicely book-ending the album. The atmosphere is stunning and consistent throughout; even heavier beat-driven tracks such as Echo or Soul Cry feature spectacular use of reverb and instrumentation, resulting in tracks that would work as well in a chill out room as they would on a dancefloor.

If It Were You We’d Never Leave is one of those rare EDM albums which has the potential for crossover success. Andrew Bayer certainly deserves it, and if you agree, grab your copy now.